“Thirty-nine, next month,” said the lawyer.
“Next month!” said the poet.
Then he turned again to his friend.
“Read me a page here and there,” he said; “I will be my own critic. Even a critic at the point of death may be expected to tell the truth. Read to me that I may know before I die that something in all those fifty-three volumes may perhaps be worth while.”
“What shall I read?” asked the lawyer.
“Read me ‘What of the Darkness?’”
And the lawyer read:
“What of the Darkness? Is it very fair?
Are there great calms, and find ye silence there?
Like soft-shut lilies, all your faces glow
With some strange peace our faces never know,
With some great faith our faces never dare,
Dwells it in Darkness? Do ye find it there?
“Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie?
Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry?
Is it a Hand to still the pulse’s leap?
Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep?
Day shows us not such comfort anywhere—
Dwells it in Darkness? Do ye find it there?
“Out of the day’s deceiving light we call—
Day that shows man so great, and God so small,
That hides the stars, and magnifies the grass—
O is the Darkness too a lying glass?
Or, undistracted, do ye find truth there?
What of the Darkness? Is it very fair?”